Creating the Staging-Area Blobspace

The staging-area blobspace is the same as any other blobspace. The name of the staging-area blobspace must be the same as the name that you provided on the STAGEBLOB parameter. After you create the staging-area blobspace, you must restart the database server.

On UNIX, you create the staging-area blobspace by using the onspaces utility.

To initialize the Optical Subsystem and create the staging-area blobspace on UNIX

Name the staging-area blobspace by editing the ONCONFIG file.
Log in as user informix.
Initialize the database server:
- Go to the Control Panel and double-click the Services icon.
- Select your database server name in the Services window and click Start.
- If you are initializing the database server for the first time, type -iy in the Startup Parameters window. (Use the -iy parameters ONLY on new systems. The -i parameter deletes all existing databases).
Wait for the database server to have a status of online before you use onspaces. To check the status, use onstat.
Add staging-area blobspace.
- Change to the directory where the blobspace should be stored:
```
cd pathname
```
- Create the file for the blobspace:
```
touch stageblob
```
- Make sure the blobspace has permissions 660 for user informix:
```
chmod 660 stageblob
onspaces -c -b stageblob -g 4 -p pathname/stageblob -o 
           0 -s 10000
```
Start new log:
```
onmode -l
```
Back up logs:
```
ontape -a
```
Do a level-0 archive:
```
ontape -s -L 0
```
Stop the database server:
```
onmode -yuk
```
Start the database server:
```
oninit
```

On Windows, you can use either the onspaces command-line utility to create the staging-area blobspace.

To use onspaces to initialize the Optical Subsystem and create the staging-area blobspace on Windows

Name the staging-area blobspace by editing the ONCONFIG file.
Log in as user informix.
Initialize the database server:
- Go to the Control Panel and double-click the Services icon.
- Select your database server name in the Services window and click Start.
- If you are initializing the database server for the first time, type -iy in the Startup Parameters window. (Use the -iy parameters ONLY on new systems. The -i parameter deletes all existing databases).
Wait for the database server to have a status of Started before you use onspaces. To check the status, use onstat.

Create a file for the blobspace:

copy NUL c:\ifmxdata\dbservername\stageblob

Create the blobspace:

onspaces -c -b stageblob -g 4 -p
c:\ifmxdata\dbservername\stageblob -o 0 -s 10000

Start new log:
```
onmode -l
```
Back up logs:
```
ontape -a
```
Do a level-0 archive:
```
ontape -s -L 0
```
Bring down oninit:
```
onmode -yuk
```
Start the dbservername service:
- Go to the Control Panel and double-click the Services icon.
- Select your database server name in the Services window and click Start.